Foxtons Staff Faced Groping and Slurs at London Property Broker

Hosts Francine Lacqua and Allegra Stratton speak with Damian Shepherd, the reporter looking into allegations of misconduct at London real estate agency, Foxtons. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Allegations of toxic work culture have been making headlines in
the UK resellly think high profile institutions like McDonald's UK
and Ireland Insurance Exchange, Lloyd's of London, hedge funds, Ode
asset Management, and prestigious real estate from Saffos.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
In fact, figures from the Office for National Statistics show
more than a quarter of sexual harassment cases take place
in the workplace. This week on in the City, we're
unpacking a Bloomberg investigation into allegations of workplace misconduct the
real estate agency Foxtons.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
Current and former Fox and employees have told Bloomberg about groping,
sexually explicit comments, offensive language, and drink driving at work.
They described senior staff who ignored inappropriate behavior or were complicit.
Will explore the implications for Foxton's as an institution and
what it can tell us about the wider industry.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
I'm Francin Laqua and I'm Alecra Stratton and.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
With us in the studio Damion Shepherd, our reporter covering
residential real estates. Damon, thank you so much for coming
in now. This is our big take. You spent months
into the investigations, how did it actually start?

Speaker 3 (01:19):
Yes, I'd love to take you back about six months
to the beginning of this one so long one Damien,
I got a message on LinkedIn from a source who
said they had some information for me. Curiously, I went
and met them for a coffee and they shared a
series of concerning allegations about their time at Foxton's. From there,
I embarked on a mission to meet with as many

(01:40):
current and former Foxton's employees as possible to understand their
experiences of working at one of London's biggest estate agencies.
And concerningly, a lot of themes have come up throughout
those conversations which have hinted at allegations of sexual harassment, racism, bullying,
anti Semitism and general concerning workplace culture within the company.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
What did you actually uncover?

Speaker 3 (02:03):
So? According to my sources, one of the main environments
for this type of behavior within Foxton's was their Friday meetings,
where lots of people from different offices would gather in
one central London office to have their deals read out
to the rest of the company to see how their
performance was Now. My sources say that historically these meetings

(02:26):
had booze laid out everywhere, people would be sipping on
beers wine throughout, and they would often be the starting
point for incidents of sexual harassment and the other allegations
we've spoken about in the story. My sources tell me
and again, these people who are making these allegations very young,

(02:46):
fresh into the industry, and if they're at this Friday
meeting having their performance read out and then being subject
to this type of behavior, then it feels very concerning
for the future of the industry. The reason why, from
an overarching point of view that's so concerning is that
the real estate industry has been known for having a
slightly checkered reputation. Over the past decade. There have been

(03:09):
a few scandals. One of our own investigations a few
years ago revealed some concerning workplace culture points at Savil's PLC,
one of Foxton's big rivals in London. So there's a
big overarching theme here that shows that all of this
behavior is it's not great for the industry and the
people involved.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
So looking at that historic Bloomberg investigation with Savell's, you
don't think that seemed like the industry had learned anything.

Speaker 3 (03:32):
I think if you look at the investigation related to Foxton's,
it seems like some of the themes within that Savile
Story are still being replicated. The Savile Stories was published
a couple of years ago. This reporting refers to the
time up until the end of last year, So from
that point of view, it looks like the industry's got
a long way to go to shake off this reputation

(03:53):
at a time when it's promising to change.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
How easy was it to get some of those younger
victims to talk.

Speaker 3 (04:00):
It was certainly challenging. That needed to be a level
of trust built from the word goes. So a lot
of these people I approached through LinkedIn further down the investigation.
People would speak to each other about the fact they'd
spoken to me, and I would have some people get
in touch with me too.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
Do they still work for Foxton's.

Speaker 3 (04:15):
So it was a mixture of former employees and current employees.
Everyone I spoke to has worked there within the last
four or five years, so this is all relatively recent.
A big theme within the story is the fact that
towards the end of twenty twenty two, a new CEO
came in, Guy Gittings. He worked for the company. Began
his career there, in fact, in the two thousands, and
he came back in while the company was struggling, underperforming

(04:39):
compared to other companies in the sector, and he vowed
to kind of bring back this old Foxton's culture from
his time when he started at the company. So what
that looks like is performance related trips and getting more
branded minis on the road too. I mean, one of
the main things that sort of makes people realize what
Foxton's is is the fact that they've seen their great

(05:00):
in mini's driving all over the capitol. The share price
has gone through the roof since he's come in. But
a big theme of the story was drink driving. One
source told me that they were in a crash while
they worked there after one of their Friday meetings where
all this booze was historically laid out in the room.

Speaker 1 (05:19):
So what time of day is the Friday meeting?

Speaker 3 (05:22):
So we're talking afternoon time, so people would be cracking
open bottles of beer sort of mid afternoon. My sources
tell me. One important thing to note is that guy
Getting's removed alcohol from these meetings in mid twenty twenty three,
which is a step in the right direction. For reducing

(05:44):
the level of alcohol consumption, particularly surrounding the drink driving
allegations in our report. But my sources tell me that
instead people would just bring in their own booze, or
managers would tell them to go to the pub before
work to have a few, and it's essentially leading to
this drinking culture and drink driving culture continuing beyond that.

Speaker 2 (06:05):
So there are fifty offices Raid of Foxton's, fifty across
London and the rest of the country. How widespread was this.

Speaker 3 (06:12):
I met with more than twenty current and former Foxton's employees.
They were across over twelve branches, so pretty widespread. We're
talking branches up in North London, central London, the outskirts
of London too. At the beginning of the investigation, I
wondered whether this was a central London issue, But as
time went on and I spoke to more people, suddenly

(06:32):
it became very apparent that this culture had spread across
the capitol essentially. And one of the most interesting sort
of light bulb moments I had throughout this investigation was
the distribution of leads. So my sources say that leads,
which essentially mean the clients that a negotiator gets who
wants to buy, sell, rent, or let a property begin

(06:55):
their life. In the head office in West London, there's
a leads boring team there who can look at these
leads and come to a conclusion as to how strong
they are. From there, according to my sources, there is
a communication between head office and branch managers about how
strong the leads that are coming down to the mar
Branch managers can then essentially control the flow of leads

(07:19):
to their sales negotiators lettings negotiators, therefore in some instances
influencing their performance. Now, what my reporting shows is that
people who've spoken out about incidents that have happened to them,
incidents that they've witnessed within the office and at company events,
have on some occasions seen their flow of leads reduced

(07:43):
or cut off completely, eventually being put on performance targets
and sometimes being dismissed from the company. So all of
this captures the way that, according to my sources, Foxton's
are allowing this behavior to continue in a way that
possibly removes people from the company that speak out.

Speaker 1 (08:04):
The people you've spoken to at length over the last
six months, But what do they feel is going on
what do they think is the kind of drive for this.

Speaker 3 (08:11):
A few sources said to me that Fox is a
fun place to work, is a social place to work,
and that whole culture of the booze, the trips away
getting these deals over the line, no matter what I think,
is essentially providing an environment for this type of behavior.
And the people involved have described really poor periods of

(08:34):
mental health, describing how they no longer want to continue
in the industry, and they're looking at jobs totally outside
of real estate.

Speaker 2 (08:42):
If the abuse goes unchecked, I imagine it perpetrates more of it.
Do we know about any disciplinary action that they've take.

Speaker 3 (08:49):
In Yes, so we do understand that some of the
people who the allegations are against are no longer at
the company. Some of them still are. So it did
feel within my reporting that there were sometimes inconsistencies with
the way that complaints were handled. There were some points
where HR seemed disinterested in some people's claims. One of

(09:12):
the most damning incidents that was shared to me by
a source was a woman in her early twenties who
was on her first shift at the company. She was
out at viewing with somebody she was shadowing a male
colleague and upon returning to the office on the walk
from the car park, he groped her breasts. She told
a manager a few months later, and the manager said,

(09:34):
that's just what he's like.

Speaker 1 (09:36):
What's interesting to me is it's not like we haven't
had instances zeitgeist shifting instances of this in other sectors,
but it seems to have passed Foxton's by that they
don't seem to have looked at what's happened in Hollywood
or what's happened in Westminster and think we should make
sure that our structures and our standards and our procedures
are watertight.

Speaker 2 (09:58):
Jaman, what'sman the Foxton response to you reporting.

Speaker 3 (10:01):
Foxtin's have said they're very concerned about the contents of
our investigation, but they have insisted that they have the
correct policies in place for people to come forward if
they do experience this type of behavior within the office. Now,
I would point out that the CEO, Guy Gettings, has
implemented some positive changes since coming in as boss. He

(10:24):
has removed alcohol from the Friday meetings before the Christmas party.
HR sent out some anti sexual harassment training just before
the event, which was the first time that had been done,
I understand over the past few years. So it seems
like there are some attempts here from the new CEO
to clean up some of this behavior, but ultimately the

(10:45):
investigation shows that right up until the end of last year,
this stuff was still happening.

Speaker 1 (10:51):
There is some evidence that across the city more broadly,
that there is an increase in certainly reporting of sexual
harassment and bullying, and the Treasury Select Committee chair make
Hilly looked into it last year and their report suggested
possibly the city was going backwards in their reports words.
But I think the question is whether it's a function

(11:12):
of new legislation and reporting or whether actually, you know,
people are now feeling emboldened to come forward.

Speaker 2 (11:19):
Do you think things will change after the investigation comes out.

Speaker 3 (11:23):
I'd like to think so. And there are early signs
that get In is making improvements within the company, that
has to be said. And the fact that in their
response they said that the things that they've read in
our report were concerning makes me hope that this could
be the point of change. And the people that I
met with said to me that that place is desperate

(11:46):
for change, and one of the big reasons why they
came and met with the journalist despite the nerves, was
the fact that they wanted to be part of the
process to get rid of this behavior and stop you know,
some very successful people leaving the industry because of the
behavior that's happening against them.

Speaker 2 (12:05):
Damien, thank you so much.

Speaker 3 (12:06):
Thanks for having me.

Speaker 2 (12:08):
Thanks for listening to this week's In the City from Bloomberg.
This episode was hosted by me Francin Laqua with alegro Stratton.
It was produced by Somersaudi and Moses and dam with
sound design by Blake Maples. Brendan Francis Newnham is our
executive producer. Special thanks to Damien Shepherd and Alisa McDonald.
Please subscribe, rate, and review wherever you listen to podcasts.